Childe
by jessicalange
Summary: The creation's name was Rapunzel. Fair of gold was her hair and blue of sky her eyes, and yet when Maleficent looked at her, all she saw was a weapon to be used.


"Don't you ever _play_ with the poor thing?"

The Evil Queen's voice rang out in the dark room, lit only by the torches on the walls and the fire flickering in the hearth. Maleficent had claimed this little part of the mountains for herself; it was a lonely existence, Regina knew, although she also knew that the woman she called _friend_ liked it that way. Company would, under no circumstances, be accepted unless said company was the Queen herself; the fortress, while large, was not inhabited by many living things, save for countless ravens, an unicorn, Maleficent's own self; along with six prized guards and a maiden she had taken as a sort of caretaker for the child, for she certainly wouldn't look after it herself. _It_ was what it was called.

It was no less than an it; at least, that was what the dark fairy believed. It _had_, after all, been _made_, not born. Created, not birthed. The Queen despised the mountains; the weather was never anything close to warm, and the fortress remained cold throughout all of winter, and spring, and autumn, and even summer when the sun crept over the fortress' highest towers and failed to melt the frost in the mountains. When summer came, Maleficent would draw her curtains and keep the place she called _home_ at a perfect chill. It was a cold winter, cooler than it had ever been, and most unpleasant to be atop this mountain when she _could_ be in her own castle, warm and comfortable.

Alas, it was something of a necessity. Maleficent was her only friend, and that title and status remained throughout these years, never wavering. Likewise, she was Maleficent's only friend, and the only one the centuries-old fairy had ever taken as one. It was a blessing; the soft arch of her friend's features when she looked at Regina and the smile that shifted across her lips that would never hold something like it around any other. It was a blessing, Maleficent's friendship. That was what the fairy deemed necessary to call it, after all. She had _chosen_ Regina, and she made sure to tell this tale to the woman multiple times over throughout their years of friendship to make sure it was realized and appreciated.

While you could not tell at first sight or at first word, or truly _ever_, Maleficent was a needy woman. She longed for victory, for revenge, for death; she desired the copper taste of blood upon her full lips and the scent of war entangled in her wild spirals of blonde hair. Most of all, she wanted Regina; Regina, who was her only source of companionship that she had anymore, for while she sought out her pets' affection and achieved it, it was never truly fulfilling as someone who could hold a conversation with her, who could smile and laugh and sip wine alongside the woman who had taken comfort in her absolute solitude among the mountains of The Enchanted Forest.

And what Maleficent wished for, she got. As the unspoken rule of her went, she got Regina; completely and wholly for two nights and two days each month, and she would spend every second that was made available to her in her friend's presence. The fairy was not an affectionate one. She was a cruel one, with darkness of the heart and mind alike, cursed to never be happy. The curse was true and real, a destiny laid out for her since the moment Maleficent had been born. Something unspoken and laughed at when spoken of, and yet it was true for her, and true for Regina; and yet still she had found a way around it.

She had found Regina, someone that made the cold, hard, black rock lying still in her chest red and alive again, if only for such a brief amount of time it could have been seconds to the fairy. And she held to Regina, and while it was not easy to find pity or sympathy for someone of Maleficent's nature, the Queen found herself able to, no matter if Maleficent desired it or not. For even she was less alone than Maleficent was, and it would always remain that way. All who lived and breathed and spoke were, as the Fates and Gods and whatever ruled intended, happier than the fallen fairy would ever, ever be.

Maleficent scoffed, glancing towards the child who laid on the floor behind them. It was a floor not soft or plush, but decorated with cold stone, and yet the little slip of a girl seemed perfectly contented to lay there and not move until called upon. "Of course not. Why would I? It is something borne out of magic. It is a _creation_, an abomination of nature. A weapon, a tool. Intercourse nor seed was used to spawn it. It is not a child, Regina. It is my perfect little pet, and when it grows, it will be as fierce and cold as I deem it necessary to make it."

The Queen was cold-hearted, certainly, but even she was human enough as to feel her stomach tie into knots at the sight of the child who hadn't any idea what was awaiting her in the future. Although, looking at her now, the thing of eight years old with long, uncut blonde hair that Regina knew was brushed daily and nightly, one hundred strokes in the morning and another hundred in the evening, her eyes blank and gazing at the ceiling as if it were something of great fascination, perhaps she _did_ have an idea. And if not, perhaps she would not even care when she did.

After all, she was no child. As much as she loathed to admit it to herself, the woman she called friend was correct in her description of the girl. Maleficent herself had created it, and not with womb. She wondered briefly how such a pretty-looking child, innocent and wide-eyed, could at the same time look so eerie and empty.

Regina looked away.

"Does she not, at the least, have a name? Do you plan to call her _it_ throughout the rest of her life?"

"Is that not enough of a designation?" Maleficent returned, tone indignant but tinged with amusement that she was unable to sweep away. "Rosalie offers the name Rapunzel," the blonde added after only a moment, with a roll of her eyes. "I disagreed, for if I give it a name then it will become a _she_, a breathing being. A human. It's merely a weapon." A tilt of her head and her gaze softened towards Regina, if only slightly. "Do _you_ like the name? It's far too long for my liking. It's all unnecessary."

"Rapunzel." Regina's lips wrapped around each syllable tenderly, and she pressed her mouth into a thin line, and then she gave a decisive nod. "I do like it." Again, her friend's gaze raised skyward towards the rafters where her ravens roosted. The queen threw her head back and laughed. "Do not be so bitter, Maleficent. You did ask me for my opinion, did you not? It is not _my_ fault if you take to it."

"Very well." Maleficent turned her head to look at the child one last time, her voice sharpening. "Thing. Come here." After a moment, the little girl obeyed, standing and walking to Maleficent. The fairy's fingers ran through long, floor-length tresses the color of gold, her hand curled into something that resembled a claw of sorts. The touch was not gentle; her movements remained languid and unconcerned as she looked down on her creation. Regina watched on. "Rapunzel." Maleficent tasted the name on her tongue, and while her nose wrinkled in distaste, she gave a small tug to the girl's hair, tilting the child's head back. "That is your new name. Do you understand me?"

The child stared up at her, unblinking. Despite Maleficent's harshness, she seemed wholly at comfort with the situation. "Yes, Mistress," she spoke, and smiled.

Regina's chest tightened.

"Good girl." Maleficent patted the girl she had made out of potions and magics on the head as if she was her unicorn and not a human being. She let go of Rapunzel's hair, and Regina could see from her seat how each strand glowed so subtly it was barely noticed. At first. But when the brunette looked at her friend, she saw greediness and desire glimmering in her bright eyes. Something monstrous; and something that did not surprise Regina in the slightest. "And do not smile again," Maleficent said as an afterthought, waving Rapunzel away. "-or you will be sleeping not in a bed but in the dungeons."

Rapunzel wandered off, and Regina found it pitiable that the threat did not seemed to register fully in her broken little shard of a mind, something that had been pieced together with dark, poisonous and corruptive magic, the very core of Maleficent; the fairy's very _essence_.

"Do you see how I indulge you?" Maleficent sighed, looking to her as if she had done some sort of horrible wrong, and yet as if she was a child and was to be coddled. "_Rapunzel_. Really. I begin to think again that I gave gained some sort of immunity against your insufferable charm, and every time you prove me wrong. It is beginning to become quite tiring, Regina." Regina looked at her and found it difficult to see not the monster who had made the girl now named Rapunzel, but only some friendless creature who held on to the warmth Regina offered her and refused to let go.

The queen smiled and held her chalice of wine high in the air. "To Rapunzel," she said dryly, and Maleficent snorted.

"To _you_, my dear," she corrected, "-for where would I be without you?"

_In the same place in the same time, doing the same monstrous things you've ever and always done, without a friend in the world_, Regina thought, but said none of that. "Yes, where would you be?"


End file.
